by Heather Webb
I stowed food rations in trunks. I lugged in cans of lamp oil, a down mattress, linens, chamber pots, coal, a cook pot, and a brazier. As I set a barrel of water down heavily, my daughter woke.
“Maman!” She toddled from the bed into the secret attic. I’d never shown it to her, and now she claimed it as her own. She ran up and down the long room, then made a game of sweeping dust into little piles.
I felt too knotted up with tension to play. Even if the Germans didn’t find us or my painting, even if I rebuilt the tea shop and managed to abide with the violent memories within, customers would scoff at a single mother to a half-breed war child. I wouldn’t expose Hope to derision. We needed to leave Brussels.
To fund such a move I must retrieve the van Dyck from its hiding place at the tea shop. I could not risk leaving it there with troops of looting Germans on the way.
Maman had told me the painting’s history. Centuries earlier, the English king Charles II fell in love with our ancestor and gave her the painting along with other precious gifts. During the next reign, she gave it to her sister, a Jacobite fleeing to France, with instructions to sell it if ever faced with hunger. Successive generations passed it to their daughters with the same instructions: sell it if ever faced with hunger.
Maman would want me to sell it now. As soon as King Albert returned with ministers and statesmen who might have money, I would. The painting would fetch enough to move us to Holland, England, or America. I could become a nurse. We could start fresh.
“Come, Hope.” I coaxed her away from her dust piles. “Let’s go down to the kitchen to bake for the days to come.”
“An sup-per?” she asked.
“Tonight we’ll use one carrot to make a soup for three.”
THAT EVENING I took rye bread and a bowl of watery carrot soup to my German and traded it for his empty breakfast tray. As usual he sat by the window, but I whiffed a trace of lye soap on him. I checked the chamber pot. He’d cleaned it himself! He has indeed recovered. I glanced at the empty report board. I must look around for his nursing reports to document his intake.
“I will bring a clean gown and linens tomorrow and do laundry in the afternoon,” I said. If my morning goes according to plan.
He didn’t respond.
“Go to bed now,” I said, uneasily. “Get away from that window.”
He turned. His gaze, ever silent, betrayed no emotion.
It unnerved me. “I don’t want you listening to my conversations. My business isn’t yours. So go to bed.”
I closed the door too firm again. How can I become a nurse if I allow this one case to upset me? My hands shook so badly, the bowl and flagon rattled on the tray.
OUTSIDE I GLANCED up at my German’s window before climbing the bricks to greet Marie. His window was closed. No shadowed face peered down. I turned to my friend and handed her a loaf of rye bread.
Normally she would eat on the spot. Instead she grabbed my wrist. “The Social Democratic Party in Germany demanded the Kaiser’s abdication. They will declare Germany a republic. A delegation is on the way to sign an armistice!”
“Already?” My thoughts raced to what I must do.
“Keep this bread for your daughter and hide. The Germans will be in retreat any moment.”
I pressed the bread into her hands. “Do something for me. Keep an eye on the clinic from your house in the morning. If you do not see a white kerchief hanging from my attic window in the alley at ten thirty, go in and take care of my daughter. She’ll be waking from a nap.”
Marie seemed confused, clinging to the bread. “But—you never go out.”
“There is something I must do. I don’t want her to be frightened if I’m detained.” I didn’t share all the reasons I was asking this of her. Her family had money and generous hearts. She knew our story, that we had no living family. If the worst happened to me tomorrow, Marie would care for Hope as her own.
She frowned. “Even some Germans here in Brussels are joining the revolution. There will be trouble.”
In that moment I cursed myself for hiding the van Dyck in the tea shop all those years ago. I cursed the paralyzing fear that kept me from going to retrieve it sooner. What if it had already been looted? I looked down, feeling defeated.
Then, beside the stack of bricks I stood upon, I spotted a white napkin from the clinic’s kitchen. How did that get here?
“Amélie, are you unwell?”
I glanced up to my German’s dark window. Had he come outside without my knowledge? Suddenly I remembered the trays I’d retrieved from his rooms; the dishes had rattled because the napkins had disappeared! I grabbed the napkin and sniffed—a faint trace of ham. Either my German had ventured beyond the water closet at the end of his hall, or he’d been giving food to someone who used my bricks to get in this garden. Chills ran down my spine.
Hope.
I ran.
“Amélie!” called Marie.
“Look for my kerchief tomorrow!” I called, rushing inside. I mounted the steps two at a time up the four flights of stairs to the attic and didn’t draw breath until I saw her.
Safe, there she slept, just as I’d left her.
I panted, seething, wondering what my German was up to. I raced down to his room and threw open the door.
In the dim light filtering through the curtain, I saw him sit up in bed. I’d startled him. Good.
I hid the napkin in my apron pocket. “Stay away from me, do you hear?”
No response.
“Stay away from my daughter.”
Sheets rustled, but he didn’t speak.
In the years since my attempted suicide, I’d formed the habit of keeping my father’s penknife with me always. I reached into my apron pocket now and felt its cool heft. “Cross me, and I’ll kill you.” I backed out, closing the door, shaking with rage.
I did not sleep that night.
November 10, 1918
BY MORNING I’D discovered rage was the perfect antidote to fear.
At the start of this war, Germany swept into Belgium and stripped her of dignity. Belgium had been broken, but not defeated. Deep within still stirred the will to survive, and a hope for better days.
I’d been brave once, before I started cowering in this clinic. For the first time, Hope was under real threat. The mist of fear had evaporated. I was ready to fight again.
I took the German a tray of porridge. He didn’t speak and, this time, I didn’t speak to him. I dumped fresh linen on his bed and slammed his door.
In the hallway, I leaned against the wall, heart thudding. Who was I kidding, thinking I could become a nurse? I would support Hope another way. At one time I’d written articles. Dangerously truthful articles that had brought German wrath upon my family. I didn’t have what it took to be a nurse, but could I find the courage to write again?
Down in the garden, Hope convinced me to play hide-and-seek until it was time to go in. Then, instead of carrying her to the attic where I had no view, we went to a back room. She quietly dressed her dollies in tiny nurse’s uniforms while I watched the garden from a window.
He came over the wall.
He used my stack of bricks to ease himself to the ground. He crept to the clinic and climbed up the drainpipe to the German’s window.
I recognized him but could not believe my eyes. A middle-aged Belgian with a hollow scar where one eye should be, Charles Vanderlinden hadn’t qualified to join our army. He’d come to work for Matron Cavell’s underground network. He’d been in love with her, and she’d called him Vander. He’d guided countless soldiers to Holland for her, retrieved the most impossible supplies, doing any dangerous thing she ever asked, all in the name of patriotism. After the Germans shot her, he came to the clinic vowing revenge against the Germans and liberty for Belgium. He’d buried his face in my lap beside my pregnant bel
ly and cried more from his one good eye than I’d ever cried from two. I hadn’t seen him since.
Now Vander spoke to my German shell shock case, words too muffled to make out through the window. Moments later he shimmied down holding a bundled napkin. He ran back to the stack of bricks chewing a mouthful of rye bread and bounded over the wall.
Sister Wilkins had suspected my German of treason against his homeland. Vander’s appearance proved Wilkins was right. Lars Ludwig was in hiding! Whatever Vander was doing for him in exchange for food, it would be for the good of Belgium.
Relief flooded through me. With Vander involved, I had no reason to worry for Hope’s safety. I could go to the tea shop as planned. “Hope, I must prepare Mr. Ludwig double rations from now on.”
She looked up and yawned.
“But first, I have work to do.” I took her up, sang lullabies, and, when her breathing was regular, I crept downstairs.
I opened the front door and glanced both ways. Besides an old woman carrying a basket, the street was deserted.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped out and locked the door behind me. I walked briskly, face down. In one apron pocket I gripped my father’s penknife. In the other I gripped the key to the clinic. The tea shop was a few blocks and one military checkpoint away. Hope would sleep only an hour and a half. I quickened my pace.
I reached the intersection. Where the military checkpoint should have been stood an unmanned gun. I paused, glanced around. Where were the military police? Had the German rebellion already taken hold of Brussels?
Confused, I crossed the street and walked faster. As I rounded a corner, I ran smack into a German officer.
He put one hand on the gun in his holster. “Ach!” he exclaimed.
I held out my hands in an apologetic gesture. “I’m sorry! Sorry!”
“Go home,” he said in German. “You stupid Belgian.” He rushed onward.
I ran toward the shop. When I reached it, I hurried past it to the next corner and turned. Oh no! The front of the shop was not as I’d left it! One window’s boards had been broken and nailed over with extra boards. At some point, someone had gone inside.
I reached the gate to my former neighbor’s back garden. They’d deserted Brussels at the start of the war, and their garden looked clear. I went through the gate to the wall of my own garden. I removed a loose brick from atop the wall and propped it on the ground. Gathering my skirts, I stepped on it to give myself enough leverage to scale the wall. We had no gate, and I didn’t dare make a display of prying boards from the front of the shop. Would the van Dyck still be inside?
I gazed up. Here every board remained intact—even over my old bedroom. I’d boarded it differently, nailing vertical boards up the sides, and sliding horizontal boards down behind them. I’d done it this way on impulse so I could return and easily slide the boards out to get in. It was the one smart thing I’d done in the aftermath of disaster. Now the pressure to return to Hope drove me.
I darted to the corner of our garden and dug into a pile of leaves. I kicked, tossed, and pushed them until my hands closed on the ladder I’d hidden there. In three years, the leaves had rotted and turned to mold. My hands felt grimy. My heart raced. I dragged the ladder to the wall, propping it under my window. I smiled for the first time that day, put both hands on the ladder, and put my foot on the first rung.
My foot went straight through it.
The rung fell apart into shards of dry-rotted wood. I put my foot on the next rung and tried to step up. That rung shattered. I inspected the third rung carefully. I put my hand around it and squeezed. The wood disintegrated in my hand. Struggling to remain calm, I eased the ladder down. Even missing a few rungs, I might still be able to reach my window. I tested others with my hands, but each gave way. “No,” I uttered, fighting tears. I tried to shimmy up the side of the ladder. Rot had ruined it. It bent under my weight until it broke, and I fell to the ground.
I pulled out Papa’s penknife and started prying at the boards over a downstairs window. This wood, undamaged by rotting leaves, held secure. I grabbed a rock and pounded the boards. Nothing gave way. I squeezed my fingers through a tiny slit, scraping my cuticles until they bled. I pulled the boards with all my might, but I didn’t have the strength. I tugged my fingers free, embedding splinters in my knuckles. I need a crowbar.
I would have to go back empty-handed. I cleaned my hands on the underside of my skirt, dried my tears with my apron, and hurried back to the clinic.
But the clinic was not as I’d left it.
AN AUTOMOBILE SAT parked on the street in front of the clinic, tiny German flags fluttering from the corners of the grille. A clutch of German officers stood at the front door with a handheld battering ram. The door itself gaped open, shattered at the latch. The officers turned to stare as I approached.
I tried to summon the courageous woman I’d once been. Rage conquers fear.
I walked past them into the front hall determined to check on Hope. Please, God, let her still be asleep. One man stood in the hall, an older German in high-ranking dress with deep frown lines. With a shock, I realized this was no mere officer, this was the German governor general of Brussels.
I decided I should appear surprised but respectful. “Sir, what is the meaning of this?” I asked in broken German.
He turned to me. “Who are you?”
I hid my bloodied cuticles under my apron. “I am the housekeeper here.”
“Nurses and patients vacated this building, yes?”
Would he stake claim so close to the end? Force me and my daughter out at such a critical moment? Not if I can help it. “They will return. When Brussels flourishes once again.”
I might as well have waved victory flags in front of his face.
He gaped as if I’d slapped him. He started barking commands in German, and the officers from the street rushed in. I deciphered “search the rooms” and “find him” in the torrent of orders.
I couldn’t let them discover Hope. “No,” I cried. “This building operates under the Red Cross. You have no right!”
They ignored me. They pulled pistols from holsters, barging through the lower level, kicking open doors and searching closets. I followed, struggling to keep up with what they were yelling. They divided, each taking different levels and spreading throughout the different townhouses. I followed the governor general upstairs as he made his way to Lars Ludwig’s hall.
His door stood open. I rushed past the governor general into the room. Lars wasn’t there.
The governor general entered, eyeing the linens on the bed and the empty breakfast tray. “This is a patient’s room?”
“Patients moved to the new hospital,” I said stripping the sheets from the bed. “I just haven’t finished cleaning all the rooms yet.” Such blatant lies to this man were grounds for arrest. As I crumpled the sheets into a wad, I spotted the shiny boots. Lars must be hiding within the building.
The governor general grunted. Officers tramped through the other rooms, shouting. If they found Lars, they would arrest me for lying. The governor general marched toward the attic stairs.
I followed, trying to distract him. “Sir, why are you here? Tell me what you want. Leave me in peace!”
He ignored me and went up. He would scare poor Hope. Lord, please don’t let them take her!
Our bed was empty. The hidden attic door was sealed. There was no sign of her. My vision blackened. I gripped the stair rail.
“This is your room?” the governor general asked me.
“Y-yes.”
Just then an officer called from downstairs, “There’s no one here. But there’s ham in the kitchen!”
The governor general pushed past me and went down calling, “Take it. Take whatever food you find.”
Dazed, I realized a failure to follow and protest would look suspicious. “You can
’t! Those are Red Cross rations.”
The men gathered in the front hall holding bread, potatoes, and apples. “Watch us take them!” one of them cried. They filed out, snickering, forgetting their battering ram in the front hall. Not bothering to fix the door, they drove off.
I used the battering ram to wedge the door closed, then I ran upstairs. “Hope!” I stopped on every floor crying, “Hope! Lars! Are you here?”
As I reached the attic I heard, “Maman, I here!”
My room was the same, except the secret panel door now stood ajar.
“I here!” She peeked from the secret room with a lollipop in one hand. She held it out. “Loll-lley!”
Behind her, Lars Ludwig appeared.
The last words I’d spoken to him had been “I’ll kill you.” I put my hand in my apron pocket and gripped Papa’s penknife. “Hope, darling, come here to me.”
Lars put out his hands. “Don’t be angry,” he said in perfect French. “I knew you wouldn’t want them to find her. I thought this would be the safest place.”
Hope didn’t move. “Lars loll-lley!”
I addressed him. “You mean it would be safest for you!”
“I don’t think they’d recognize me, and I destroyed the nursing reports listing my name.”
Hope pointed to her lollipop. Colorful and thick, it was the kind that came only from England or America. I hadn’t seen one in years. “You speak without a German accent, and you fraternize with a Belgian patriot.” I pulled out the penknife and opened it, slowly walking to Hope. I pulled her away.
Lars kept his hands up. “I’m a linguistics expert. I speak several languages with accurate accent variations. English, Irish English, American English, French, Belgian French, Dutch, Russian. The Germans used to send me into other countries to—to blend in and get information.”
I couldn’t hide my shock. “You’re a German spy! Why hide from the governor general? What have you done?”
“I work for a secret branch of the German army that specializes in destabilizing foreign governments. I disguise myself and infiltrate dissatisfied communities to encourage rebellion. But I’ve switched sides.”